How high is your competitive awareness? On a scale of one to 10…with 10 being strongest…pick a number you feel most represents your current level of competitive awareness. Most experienced sales professionals identify their competitive awareness level as around a seven to nine…what’s your number? Having a comprehensive understanding of your competition and how they […]
Sell More With a Strong Competitive Awareness MORE »
Can you increase your persuasiveness when presenting your ideas to customers? A powerful idea that might be of help originally came out of the 1940’s and involves “pencil selling” as a way to get your message remembered and to help you maintain control of your sales presentation. “Pencil selling” simply means using a blank pad
Remember to ‘Pencil Sell’ During Your Sales Presentation MORE »
Natural evolution of a dealership As dealerships get larger each person working there will tend to become more specialized. In the beginning when there are only one to three locations most managers are general managers getting involved in all major decisions. As they grow, usually by adding locations, they will need their top managers to
Reasons to Add a Sales Manager to a Dealership MORE »
Are there valid reasons for recording a salesperson’s travels by GPS? Short term I am sure a team’s sales would increase due to the bottom performers running scared and working harder. But long term I believe a team will lose its top performers (or future top performers) due to their feelings of “Big Brother” and
Are You Managing Your Sales Team by GPS? MORE »
The best sales coaching opportunity is going to be whenever you are riding with a rep for a few days or are talking with them on the phone. On the phone it’s just taking a few extra minutes to ask them about any specific account plans or what they are working on with their most
Using ‘Ride-With Sales Coaching’ and Being a Leader MORE »
As a sales manager, are you spending more times working to solve symptoms or problems from your sales team members? Sadly, most of the sales managers I see spend the majority of their time only working on symptoms and not problems. The majority of all the sales problems brought to me by sales people asking
Focusing on Problems – Not Symptoms MORE »
The reality of today’s buyers is they rarely make decisions alone. A “final decision maker” will still seek opinions and insights from others, even when they alone are the final decision maker of their vendor selection. However, most sales professionals only focus their attention selling to their main buyer or decision maker and see little
Selling to Your Buyer’s Entire Political Culture MORE »
What is your selling approach and competitive uniqueness? Is your selling strategy to win the business based on having the lowest prices or are you selling on your greater value and lower total cost? Less skilled sales people tend to gravitate to selling on price. They lack the skills of probing to understand better, their
Positioning Buyers to Use Your Low Risk Customer Buying Process MORE »
There‘s a new term that’s crept into today’s selling and service language that’s having a severe and negative impact on our customers… and how they view our efforts to help them, and I bet it’s a term you’ve used yourself in the last 24 hours when talking with your customer. And the term is…“No problem!”
You Can Always Sell More, By Not Saying ‘It’s No Problem!’ MORE »
Are your salespeople maximizing all of the selling opportunities available in your markets? How are you, as their sales manager, contributing to their selling success and profitability? What “management style”do you utilize to lead your sales team? There are two basic managerial styles or philosophies of leading a sales team. You can manage and lead
Sell More by Becoming More of a ‘Managing Manager’ MORE »
